Blackhurst argued that journalists have an image problem, and said the public sees "journalists behaving badly and nothing happening to them". He said "frankly, maybe we should" look at striking off errant journalists – an idea put forward by Ivan Lewis, the shadow culture secretary, at Labour conference on Monday.

"The Jockey Club bars jockeys from riding horses – why can't we bar journalists from writing articles," Blackhurst said, adding that "newspapers had to take charge of their own industry". But he conceded that his thinking on the issue was at an early stage. When pressed he said he had "not thought about" what body would licence reporters.

The editor also indicated any "new body" that took over the work of the Press Complaints Commission should have powers to "seize documents and seize computers" and act proactively in the way regulators like the General Medical Council or Financial Services Authority could.

Blackhurst was also asked by presenter Steve Hewlett about the Independent's decision to continue employing Hari, after he admitted plagiarism in interviews and using a false identity to modify critics' Wikipedia profiles. The editor said he would have "dearly loved to" pass the Hari case to the PCC, but could not, so did the "the next best thing" by asking Andreas Whittam Smith to review the matter.

The editor said Hari was barred from doing interviews in the future, but would return as a columnist in mid-February after undergoing a period of training at his own expense. The writer's work would be "much more carefully checked" in future, Blackhurst added.

Blackhurst said he told Hari to hand back the Orwell Prize for journalism he won in 2008, which the journalist agreed to as "an act of contrition".

However, this week the prize committee said Hari had not returned the £2000 prize money, adding that one of his prize winning entries "contained inaccuracies and conflated different parts of someone else's story (specifically, a report in Der Spiegel)".